Shakespeare Jamie Manivong P.5

William Shakespeare was a famous dramatist, poet, and actor from the Elizabethan Era who many people regard him as the world's greatest playwright and England's finest poet to be ever produced.

Writer

Writer 1

Direct Quote:

"Shakespeare took the theater of his time, and he used it brilliantly"(Anderson 778).

Paraphrase:

The theater Shakespeare used influenced the way he wrote his plays. For example, above the inner stage was a small balcony or upper stage that could've been used as Juliet's balcony in Romeo and Juliet, the high walls of a castle, or the bridge of a ship.

Writer 2

Direct Quote:

"Year after year he provided it with plays, almost on demand"(Anderson 777).

Paraphrase:

Shakespeare was able to easily write plays when his company, the King's Men, needed it.

Writer 3

Direct Quote:

"Shakespeare contributed little that was entirely new, but he developed the dramatic techniques of earlier playwrights."(Novick)

Paraphrase:

Shakespeare did not share any new aspects of drama. He, more likely, expanded the techniques that earlier playwrights used. Shakespeare borrowed from histories, fiction, myths, and earlier plays like other playwrights of his time.

Writer 4

Direct Quote:

"They wonder how the son of illiterate parents from a rural village with only a grammar-school education—if that—could possibly have written the acknowledged canon, and how could he have gained such insight into the human spirit."(Sanna)

Paraphrase:

Critics wonder how Shakespeare was able to become argumentatively the best playwright of his time with only a grammar-school education.

His Plays

Plays 1

Direct Quote:

"They were part of the cultural life of the American Colonies and provided entertainment in the mining camps of the Old West."(Lander 3)

Paraphrase:

What Lander was talking about was Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's plays were important in the culture of America since colonial times. In mining camps of the Old West, his plays were a source of entertainment.

Plays 2

Direct Quote:

"The difference between the appeal of a movie and appeal of a a play may account for the failure of some successful plays when they are translated to the screen"(Anderson 780)

Paraphrase:

Shakespeare's theater style of stage made it possible for playwrights to move the story from different scenery to scenery establishing each new scene with a single line. Playwrights were tempted to write plays that were similar to the style of movies, that focused more on the scenery than the movement of words that developed all in one setting. Most of the time, people who go to watch plays prefer to watch a conflict gradually develop in one setting.

Plays 3

Direct Quote:

"The strength of Shakespeare's plays lies in the absorbing stories they tell, in their wealth of complex characters, and in the eloquent speech—vivid, forceful, and at the same time lyric—that the playwright puts on his character’s lips."(Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia)

Paraphrase:

Shakespeare's plays have a deeper meaning inside the stories. That meaning whether through the complexity of characters or in the detailed, powerful, lyrical speech from the characters.

Influence

Influence 1

Direct Quote:

"Shakespeare's plays are still produced all over the world"(Anderson 777).

Paraphrase:

Throughout the world, Shakespeare's plays are still being used and remade in different countries. It comes to show that his plays are still popular to date after more than 400 years.

Influence 2

Direct Quote:

"Shakespeare, though he cannot be called an American poet, as he was not born here and never saw our continent, is yet a poet of the Americans.…"(Bryant)

Paraphrase:

Although Shakespeare was born in the United Kingdom, he has came to be a well-known playwright among Americans. His work has been a source of entertainment every since colonial times and has been passed down from generation to generation.

Influence 3

Direct Quote:

"He seems to have concerned himself more with achieving security in Stratford than with preserving his work for the generations to come—to have produced his work for immediate consumption, changing the tenor of it subtly with the tides of public opinion."

Paraphrase:

Shakespeare made his plays for "immediate consumption" as the quote stated, meaning that his plays were only to be acted out quickly after he was finished with writing it. He did not intend his work to become popular after many generations.